


tell me all the ways to love you

by canonlytrans



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Insomnia, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Minor Eridan Ampora/Feferi Peixes, Minor Gamzee Makara/Tavros Nitram, Minor Tavros Nitram/Vriska Serket, Past Abuse, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 00:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17151878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canonlytrans/pseuds/canonlytrans
Summary: You feel like you barely know him, and yet here you are, planning to pretend you're a couple.





	tell me all the ways to love you

“How long have we been friends?”

Tavros looks up at you, spinning a pencil between his fingers, and it’d be pretty cool, you suppose, if he hadn't already dropped it five times and hit himself on the forehead with it a total of seven times. “Uh,” he says, blinking at you with those _very_ large amber eyes. “ _Are_ we, well, friends?”

That's beside the point, you think, and sigh. “How long have you kno… known me?”

“Like… hmm, five years?”

“Five years. This is _two_ w-weeks.”

“Why don't you ask, uh, Dave? Or Aradia?”

He makes a good point. Why aren't you asking someone else? Hell, you could always ask Rose Lalonde - she's beautiful and would make everyone envy you, and if she wasn't both a lesbian _and_ dating one of your ex friends… well, you totally would ask her. Aradia is too busy with finals, Dave has been leaving you on read for a week, and you doubt Jane or Jake would go along with this, since they're both in stable relationships and neither of them even like you all _that_ much, you only know Dirk from history class and John... isn't exactly your closest friend ever.

You Know Who is out of the question.

Hence, Tavros Nitram.

“Look, Tav - Tavros, it's free food, a place to stay, nothin’ I'm sure you -” You have to pause so you don't stutter too badly. “- can't handle.”

“Eridan,” he says, and quits his pencil spinning. “I'm flattered, but I don't, um, like you that way?”

Your face bleaches. “No, no, it's… I'm just askin’ you to _pretend_ we're an item.”

“Oh.” He blushes faintly, but he's actually smirking at you. “ _Oh_. You just want to get back at them, don't you?”

“Well, yeah, that's the plan.”

Tavros looks at you with this face that's reminiscent of his older brother’s to the point it's actually really… weird to look at. “What's, uh, the story there?”

You give Tavros the shorter version: that she cheated on you and subsequently left you for Cronus. Not the rest, definitely not that. It's not his business.

“Whoa,” he says, frowning at you, making himself look like a big dork. It's sort of cute, but his being cute is one of the reasons you decided to ask him, so you're definitely allowed to think about that. “Okay, I get it, but how's having a fake boyfriend gonna do you any, uh, good?”

“W-well, havin’ a fake boyfriend means showin’ Fef...eri I moved on.”

“Yeah, um, okay, but… why would she care?”

“Also,” you say, “Vriska will be there.”

He makes a face that's a mix between contempt and pain. “So that's why you're asking me.”

“We have a common enemy in her,” you say.

There's a knock on the door.

Tavros quits spinning the pencil. “That’ll, be Gamzee,” he murmurs, wheeling himself over to the door and checking through the peephole that's right at his eye level. “Sorry, Eridan. He's my roommate. Um, he lost his key last week.”

The ‘I know you don't really like him cause he's a drug dealer’ is unspoken.

“Right, I'm leavin’ anyways,” you say, and get to your feet.

Tavros frowns right as there's a blur of purple jumping onto the bed on the other side of the room, and there's Gamzee Makara, who may well be the most annoying person you know but there's not much you can say about him that _isn't_ insults and rumors, so maybe he's actually a great guy since going into rehab. The benefits of having your parents’ money to throw around, after all.

“Hey, hey, Tavbro, what's Eridan motherfuckin’ Ampora doin’ in here? He botherin’ ya, bro?” He ruffles his own hair with one hand, the black curls streaked with bright purple that you doubt he got done while sober. That and the tattoos on his arms, vaguely reminiscent of an amusement park with the ferris wheel and a carousel and possibly a roller coaster on his left shoulder. He looks weird, you think.

“No,” says Tavros, looking over at him. “He was just leaving, actually.”

And then his brown eyes meet yours, and he gives you a nod, smiling enough to show his perfectly straight teeth. You remember when he had braces.

“I'm in.”

* * *

(Here's the full story: your brother stole your girlfriend.

You've known Feferi since kindergarten, when your only problems were getting Terezi to not eat your colored pencils and not stuttering around friends. Back then, she was just Feferi, and you were just Eridan. The rest didn't matter because you were friends, and you made each other happy.

In middle school, those feelings turned less than platonic, and you went from being friends to kissing her at a middle school dance. She'd laughed, tasted like punch and pretzels, and told you she was flattered, but she liked Sollux Captor, who was instantly your arch nemesis. Like something from a comic book, up until you landed in detention and the Ampora status kicked in.

Your dad was an ex-military man who’d managed to become ridiculously rich because of, out of everything, weapons manufacturing. And Feferi’s family, the Peixes, was even richer. A donation to the school and Sollux’s expulsion later, and Feferi was 100% totally yours. And you dated through high school, though it wasn't much of a relationship, but you were relatively happy.

Until you caught her getting fucked by your older brother the day after prom… less than 24 hours after losing your virginity to Feferi in the first place.

And now, in the present, they're getting married.)

* * *

You don't have a roommate, because you have a tiny apartment off campus. You'd say it's nice, but it was Cronus’s when he went to school here, and now yours. So it's more his aesthetic than yours, since you refuse to decorate it yourself - no point, it's a temporary living space. You've never had to bring anyone home. This isn't even home.

Your bags are packed for break, though your suit is at the dry cleaners and you're not sure what to do about Tavros - do you ask him to get one, get one for him? You don't know his measurements. You don't know if he owns or even has money for a suit. This fake boyfriend thing sounds kind of… complicated, and you're the one who came up with it.

You check your phone - a message from Terezi about homework, a message from Dirk reminding you about the book you borrowed. Nothing from Dave, of course. And…

Something from an unknown number. A missed call. A voicemail.

You hit play while you cook yourself some dinner, frowning when a familiar voice plays through. “ _Heyyyyyy, it's Vriska! If you get this - hic - call, means I got drunk ‘nough to say it. I want you back, baby. I miiiiiiss you soooo much_.”

You hit delete.

Something you and Tavros have in common - a shared, incredibly nasty ex girlfriend in Vriska Serket. Though his relationship with her ended in a temporary restraining order, and yours just ended with a busted up nose (now it's crooked, another thing separating you from looking like your brother.)

Aside from Vriska there's LARPing, which you used to be into (freshman year), music (how you both know Dave Strider and how Tavros knows his brother Dirk), and of course, Pokemon, though your water types versus Tavros’s fairy types have never been much to a conversation. Aside from a few things, you don't have much.

You feel like you barely know him, and yet here you are, planning to pretend you're a couple. You're two very different people, very different backgrounds. Where you come from rich white American stock (minus your mother, who's Iranian), Tavros is lower middle class and a second generation immigrant. From somewhere in South America, you think. Brazil, maybe, or Cuba. He's taller than you, when he can and does stand. He's bigger, too, probably thirty pounds over you. Here you are, 5’6”, the weird rich kid with a stupid white streak in your hair. At least you can dye it. Damn poliosis. Tavros has tattoos, you've seen the dark curls of them on his arms and neck, and the golden glint of a tongue piercing sometimes - you have neither of those, but a few ear piercings which you got as a teenager and they never quite healed up right.

Physically, you're completely different, from the dark freckled skin of his form to his dark brown hair and brown eyes. Whereas you look like your mother in masculine, slick straight dark hair and everything _but_ her dark eyes.

Your dad will find Tavros Nitram a complete stranger, because you doubt he's met anyone like him.

This is going to be a disaster or a masterpiece, you think, pouring yourself a small glass of wine and hitting decline on the incoming call from Vriska.


End file.
